Maintaining the dental hygiene of domestic pets is a well-known issue. Like humans, domestic pets such as dogs and cats develop bacterial infections, known generally as plaque, on the surface and in the spaces between the teeth of said pets. In addition to the malodorous breath and appearance of domestic pets suffering from an excess of plaque, it can also precipitate the gum disease gingivitis, damage to the pet's teeth, and other material detriment to the oral health of the pet. If left routinely uncleaned, it can harden and become almost impossible to remove without professional assistance.
Traditional methods of cleaning the teeth of pets has involved labor-intensive manual cleaning by the pet owner, a process which is both time-consuming and often results in unnecessary antagonism between the domestic pet and its owner.
Wild relatives of domestic pets, such as wild dogs and wolves, use the frictional effects of gnawing on bones and other hard objects to clean their teeth of plaque and residual pieces of food. The use of domestic pet chew toys as a method of mimicking these natural dental hygiene methods for domestic pets is known in the art. As a consequence, many domestic animal chews or chew toys have been produced of rawhide or other hard surface and configured in such a way as to mimic the shape and feel of natural bone. Other products have introduced additional artificial features to improve upon the natural cleaning action of a domestic pet's chewing action on bone, such as the use of additional projections on a surface of the chew toy.
Information relevant to attempts to address these problems can be found in US Patent Application No. 2004/0216693 to Handelsman; U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,119 to Suchowski; U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,287 to Sarantis; U.S. Pat. D501,961 to Jager; US Patent Application no. 2004/0137118 to Axelrod; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,807,088 and 7,490,579 to Axelrod. However, each one of these references suffers from one or more disadvantages. One consistent failing of existing products relates to a domestic pet's propensity to grip or hold an object between its front paws. Domestic pets will naturally seek to stabilize the subject of their chewing action, allowing for a stronger and more satisfying engagement by the pet's mouth, while increasing the friction applied to the pet's teeth and oral cavity by the bone or chew toy. Another failing of existing products is the inability to use pet toothpaste and other supplementary dental hygiene products in conjunction with the chewing action of the chew toys. This leaves the need for supplementary manual cleaning by the domestic pet owner. Yet another disadvantage of existing products is the lack of differentiated surfaces for inner and outer domestic pet teeth. Domestic pets, such as dogs and cats, have substantially different shape and spacing in their teeth between the front of their mouths, wherein are located canines and other long, large teeth, and the smaller, more closely spaced teeth in the back of the pets' mouths. The differences in size and spacing of these teeth suggest the need for different surfaces with different textures and projections adapted to the particular needs of that portion of the domestic pet's dental structures.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an improved domestic pet chew toy that allows domestic pets to clean their own teeth.